Rise in stalking crimes leads to push for change

February 18, 2012|By Alexia Campbell, Sun Sentinel

Sheila Zayas lost her hair, lost sleep and lost business because of her stalker. The 31-year-old woman from suburban West Palm Beach regrets the day she gave her business card to a man she met at a thrift store in 2009.

He turned into an obsessive stalker, professing his love to her several times a day by email, text message, Facebook and her business website. Efforts to block his messages failed, she said, and a call to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office didn't help.

"I felt so alone," said Zayas, who later got a concealed-weapons permit. "I thought, 'Either he kills me, or I'm going to kill him.'"

In August 2011, after speaking to an attorney, Zayas finally got a restraining order against the Lake Park man.

Stalking cases such as Zayas' are increasing across much of Florida, and social-services agencies are worried they could lead to more rapes and murders.

Between 2008 and 2010, stalking crimes increased 11 percent in Florida, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Palm Beach County's 51 stalking crimes reported in 2010 represent a 13 percent increase from the same time period in 2008. Reported stalking in Broward County, however, dropped 31 percent during that time, a decline experts could not explain.

Palm Beach County agencies are pushing to change how stalking cases are handled. Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse, in Delray Beach, and the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County got a $300,000 grant in November to develop a countywide plan that ensures stalking victims don't fall through the cracks.

"We're looking for systematic change," said Jennifer Rey, the center's violence-prevention coordinator. "Stalking is a very serious crime, and technology is making it easier."

The Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence picked only Palm Beach County to get the federal money.

Under Florida law, stalking is a misdemeanor when someone maliciously and repeatedly follows, harasses or cyberstalks another. It becomes a felony if the person also threatens to harm or kill.

Lawyers, police, prosecutors and mental-health providers are working together on the project, which they will put into place in a few months. Their first step is to train everyone how to identify stalking, Rey said.

Police may respond to a call that appears a harmless, isolated incident, but is actually part of a larger string of repeated harassment, she said.

Some of the grant money helped the Legal Aid Society hire a lawyer to handle stalking cases. Lawyer Kristin Cantrell will help victims gather evidence and file restraining orders. It's often hard to prove to a judge that you are being stalked, especially when you can't show evidence that someone is repeatedly following you, Cantrell said.

Legal Aid also plans to hire a part-time private investigator, who will help victims get phone records or take photos of stalkers lingering outside their homes.

"We want to catch these cases before it reaches violence," Cantrell said.

The anti-stalking collaborative will look at other gaps in the system that prevent victims from getting help. If you are stalked by someone you never dated or had an intimate relationship with, it's even harder to get services, Cantrell said.

"There's so much funding for domestic-violence victims, but [the stalker] could be a co-worker or a neighbor," Cantrell said.

Mariana Fritsch, of Deerfield Beach, said she's grown frustrated to find no protection. The 30-year-old said a former employee has harassed and threatened her repeatedly in the past five years, since he was fired for sexual harassment.

The man threatened to kill her family about a year later, but Fritsch was unable to get a restraining order. A Broward County judge denied her petition in 2009 on grounds that she lacked evidence, court records show.

Last year, someone spray-painted her car and repeatedly slashed her tires while she was at work. One day she arrived to see her name spray-painted outside a building with the words "skank" and "whore." Fritsch also got a voicemail message from someone threatening to kill her and her 4-year-old son.

The Broward Sheriff's Office responded to Fritsch's calls, but the detective assigned to her case said there is no evidence that links the incidents to her ex-employee.

"We take every stalking accusation seriously," BSO spokeswoman Dani Moschella said. "The detective spent a lot of time on this and determined it was not a stalking case."